Seele had worked hard to restore and enlarge the buildings, dilapidated through age and poverty; Marsh and Huntingdon had built a new Chapel and Hall on the site of the present Campanile, but excessively plain and ugly; even Pratt proposed the building of a new belfry over the Hall, a plan which was carried out thirty years after his resignation. The Chapel is compared by a visitor to a Welsh church. The old tower at the north side of the College, which had lasted from the days of All Hallowes’ Abbey, was restored by Seele, who evidently strove to save this relic of the past. The Front Square was being rebuilt, when the dangerous interlude of James II.’s occupation beggared the College for a moment, after which the houses of the Library Square, which still stand there, were taken in hand. Perfectly plain they were, but solid, and have stood the wear and tear of nearly 200 years, not to speak of the improving fury of occasional innovators, who, even in our day, have threatened them with destruction.[75] They have been disfigured, as the Royal Hospital has been, with ugly grey plaster. If the original red bricks were uncovered, and a tile roof set upon them, the public would presently find out that they were picturesque. At all events, the west side, which was taken down in this century, was a better and more suitable building than those erected (“Botany Bay”) by way of compensation. The bold undertaking of building the present great Library, without possessing books enough to fill more than a corner of it, must have been Baldwin’s idea. It was no doubt he who hit upon the idea of soliciting the Irish Parliament for grants, although the College was rapidly increasing in wealth. £15,000 was obtained in this way between 1712 and 1724, when the building was finished. The total cost is said to have been only £17,000! Dr. Stubbs deserves the credit of discovering the name of the architect, which was long forgotten, and which is not mentioned, I believe, in the College Register. He was Mr. Thomas Burgh, in charge of the fortifications of King William III. If the Royal Barracks, lately abandoned, were also his work, they offer a strange contrast to his plan for the Library. What his old Custom House in Essex Street was like I do not know.[76] Neither do I know upon what authority Dr. Stubbs adds another detail, that the two small staircases inside the west door, which lead to the gallery, were transferred from the older library, where Bishop Jones had set them up in 1651. If so, these staircases are the oldest piece of woodwork in the College, unless it be the pulpit used for grace in the present Dining Hall, which bears evidences of being equally old. The further history of this Library, which was rapidly enriched by many valuable bequests, forms the subject of another chapter.